The Cock's Magic Wand
The Cock's Magic Wand
June turns the Cock into a frog with his magic wand
Jiekai's Cookhouse Food. He'd been raving about his "一顶锅"/"一鼎锅 " ("Yi4 Ding3 Guo1" - Claypot Special) for a long time - since he visited me in Utrecht, in fact. So we were all eager to see his house special. After all, this is what Oxford students pay £3 each to eat on Friday nights. When it came out, all of us unanimously agreed it looked like cookhouse food (Enming said he could set up "Colonel Cock's Cookhouse" in Oxford). For some reason I was expecting something like in restaurants, where you have a thick brown sauce full of flavour. This had a thin, watery sauce. nw.t describes it best: "It tastes like the sum of its parts... it's supposed to taste like more than the sum of its parts".
Charles, Me and the Cock
The Cock making meringue. The autofocus refused to focus on him because he's so cock.
The spread: Coq Au Vin, Cookhouse food, Ikea Swedish meatballs with cream sauce and lingonberry jam, General Tso's Chicken. 2 pizzas in background.
My mother taught me a trick for deep frying: instead of flouring and immediately frying, you put the meat back in the fridge so the flour and egg form a glossy layer around the meat. This is why I could achieve the classic golden brown look this time, and leaving the oil clean (though this is a relative term for her deep fry oil).
The Coq Au Vin was not so succesful. This was my first time chopping up a chicken, so I didn't do it very well and there were bone fragments around and about. I also think I put too much wine again (2/3 of a 75cl bottle). Though My Favourite Test Tube Washer says "no such thing as too much wine!", it's different when the bottle has a price tag of $20+ (I doubt I will make Coq Au Vin very often in Singapore, given how expensive wine is here). Like the last time, I reduced the liquid too much and so had too little. I then needed to thicken it. My mother suggested 2 tablespoons of cornflour to 2 tablespoons of water, but the mixture of this and my sauce turned into a disgusting, gelatinous mass on touching the saucepan so there went thelittle sauce I had.
The meringue on the table, and what it looked like inside. I don't think I've had meringue before - it has the texture of marshmallow, and the sweetness too (though maybe the Cock added too much sugar).
Jiekai's pseudo-creme brulee (baked custard), and what it looks like inside, with bits of the crumbled magic wand. It was somewhat moist and spongy. A most unique, even if simple, treatment of custard.
Considering this was the first time he'd made either, they turned out well.
"Flip your goddamn hair" Take 1
"Flip your goddamn hair" Take 2
"Flip your goddamn hair" Take 4
Before anyone asks: Yes, I know Take 3 is missing. No, it's not me. No, the person in Take 3 does not want the clip to be displayed. Yes, I have better hair than the person in Take 3.
My Little Bird was the only one who stayed back to help with the really hardcore cleaning up, and he was so good that my mother didn't complain the next day - this must be a first!
We got a surprisingly large number of people this time - 11 (though 10 was the maximum at any one time), and managed to con new people to come down also. In addition, one of the age old problems YR has faced since its inception due to its nature was ameliorated.
